


we all fell down when the sun came up

by badwolfgrapesoda



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Demon Deals, F/F, Fae & Faeries, Insisor Rooms Verse, i'm so gay for this au lmfao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 06:19:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12184584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfgrapesoda/pseuds/badwolfgrapesoda
Summary: It started like this: she was a fucking idiot. She went to a bar and tried to get smashed enough to forget the fact that she couldn't do right by her kid.And here's the middle; trapped in a magic house, sitting round a dining table with two people who may not be entirely human. It's pretty bad, Sarah thinks, but it's not going to be the end.





	we all fell down when the sun came up

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [House of Teeth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12020454) by [piggy09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09). 



> I do not own these characters. If I did, they'd be gayer.  
> This is my interpretation of a prequel to piggy09's Insisor Rooms stories (posted with her permission). TWs for unhealthy relationships, violence, kidnap, alcohol, and swearing if that bothers you. Also Sarah is in a sexual situation which she consents to but is... not healthy.  
> Written to 'Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time' and 'House of Memories' by Panic! At The Disco.

Getting drunk is a well-worn mistake, Sarah will admit, but it usually leads to explosive hangovers and panicked trips to the chemist with her hair still smelling of another person’s bed. There’s never been anything like this.

It starts like this: she trudges round to S’s with her boots full of lead after another fruitless week of sending in job applications. Sarah knows what they think of her, knows they take one look at her uncombed hair and leather jacket and in their heads they’re already tossing her resume in the bin. She’s been round all the local bars, but she’s a regular visitor and they know her too well to believe she’d be reliable. All she wants is to go in and hug Kira, the only person on the planet who whole-heartedly believes in her, smell her clean, soapy skin straight out of the bath.

But when she reaches the door, she knows it won’t be like that. She can wipe her shoes on the welcome mat but she can’t wipe off the weight of the day, and S will see it on her face and give her that look, that pursing of her lips that makes Sarah feel like she’ll never amount to anything. She dithers on the steps for a few minutes, fingering the coins at the bottom of her pocket. It’s enough for a couple of pints and Sarah never has to pay for more than that. Maybe she can’t get a job but she does know how to work men, especially ones already halfway to passing out on their bar stools. In the end, she leaves without knocking, though she wants it so badly that her knuckles ache.

*

Sarah walks into the first shithole she can find. She has a few beers, and some shots, and shares a flask of truly awful whiskey with a gentleman who breathes heavily in her ear and fondles her knee under the table. Maybe ‘gentleman’ isn’t the right word. She isn’t thinking too much about words. She lets him lead her into the bathroom and press her into the sink, grimy and sticky with who knows what, lets him paw and grope and slide his hands under her jacket (she won’t let him take off the jacket) and imagines she’s somewhere else, somewhere that swallows the running circles of bad things that live in her head.

Suddenly she can’t bear the pressure of anyone’s hands on her, and shoves him off so hard that his back slams into the row of stalls behind them. Lust turns to anger on his face and he charges at her with a roar that rattles wetly in his throat. Adrenaline spikes up Sarah’s spine, but she isn’t scared. Anger feels safe, it’s as familiar as the warmth of an old coat. The man gets one good hit in, his fist connecting with her cheek with a meaty _thunk_ , and then Sarah’s on him, punching and scratching until he stumbles. She kicks him and he goes down and she kicks him again, over and over, not knowing why she’s doing it except that it feels better than not doing it, until she comes back to herself with a snap that feels like a hole in her chest.

She rushes out of the bar and retches on the wet cobblestones. Her cheek throbs; there’s going to be a bruise later. She’s not supposed to do this anymore, _she’s_ _not_ _supposed_ _to be fucking doing this_. She’s so mad at herself that she feels sick with it. When everything stops spinning, she gets up (when did she sit down?) and wobbles away, her legs shaking with how much she wants everything to stop. It’s drizzling and her clothes are damp and cold.

Sarah shoves her hands in her jacket pockets and rubs the lint in the bottom of them over her fingertips. She hasn’t lived with S for years but it feels more like home than the apartment she currently shares with Elle and Tito. They don’t judge her but they’re shit at comfort and tonight she wants more than a stopping-place where the floor is crunchy underfoot from spilled ramen. It’s all she’s got though, so she sets her teeth and keeps going.

Walking warms her up a bit and eventually Sarah starts to feel a little better. She doesn’t remember the journey taking this long but she’s not in a hurry to get back. The rain smells like a tiny white flower Kira gave her once; the slick grass is soft on her sore feet – Sarah comes back to herself with an unpleasant start. There’s no grass anywhere near where she lives – and why is she barefoot? She realises that she’s holding her boots by the knotted laces but has no memory of taking them off. That flower-scent grows stronger, filling Sarah’s nostrils, choking her with sweetness. _Honeysuckle_. She mouths the word and the street lamps flare – except they’re not street lamps.

She reaches out to touch one but the soft ball of light bobs away. She has an idea that it would be bad to follow it, but she’s tired and lost and she’s always had a habit of walking into bad situations so she stumbles after the light. She can’t be too far away from a town because she can hear music. It must be just over the next hill – or the next, or the next.

*

Sarah doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she dreams (at least, she knows it must be a dream). The ground opens up and she walks inside the hill. It’s all hollowed out and there’s a secret club inside. The bouncer asks her to pay a toll, but she doesn’t have any money so she lets him pick a few strands of hair from the collar of her jacket. Everything is lit up by those weird floating balls. These ones flash disco colours, violet-cerulean-emerald-vermillion, countless other colours Sarah doesn’t know the names for. She slips into the crush of people and lets them buoy her up. They’re all dancing and writhing to different beats, as though they’re hearing different music, but they’re all packed so tight together that she can just close her eyes and let them support her.

She’s almost slipping away to a deeper level of dreaming, but she’s woken from her trance by a woman whose waist is at Sarah’s head height bending and placing a kiss on the corner of her mouth. Energy pulses through her and she can almost feel her pupils dilate. The woman takes hold of her wrists with hands covered with fine hair, soft as a kitten’s fur, and they dance for what seems like hours. The music bubbles under her skin and flows through her body like an electric current.

They’re still dancing when the music begins to hurt. It’s been growing steadily more frantic and they’ve been moving faster and faster until Sarah can’t suck in enough air to keep up. Her head aches and she comes to a halt. The manic energy leaves her and she’s suddenly dead on her feet. She clutches at her dance partner but the woman pulls her arm away with a grin that grows wider and wider without showing any teeth. _She doesn't have any teeth_ , Sarah thinks with a creeping horror that scurries up her spine and pricks her scalp. She’s paralysed by that grin, which has grown impossibly until it’s bigger than the rest of her face, a cavernous darkness that might swallow Sarah whole.

She spins on legs that don’t feel like they belong to her and runs. The room whirls around her. She’s so dizzy her body refuses to keep going and she hits the ground and grazes her palms. Then she closes her eyes and crawls blindly, not understanding why she’s so panicked. Everything just feels _wrong_. She desperately wants to wake up but her stupid brain won’t let her. Eventually, the world around her goes quiet and the scent of honeysuckle gets so faint she wouldn’t smell it if she wasn’t expecting it, but she doesn’t dare open her eyes. She keeps going until her arms and legs go numb, and then she lays there and rests on the springy moss. The coolness feels good on her hot face. The loamy soil seems to echo her heartbeat back to her, and the rhythm of it gets slower and slower, and slower…

Some time later, she comes back to herself a little. It feels like struggling to the surface from the bottom of the ocean. She feels something licking the crook of her elbow, but she’s too tired to do anything. The something touches her face with human fingers, then retreats. It returns a few minutes later with someone else. The new person tuts and brushes Sarah’s hair back gently.

“I found her first,” a voice says insistently. “Will you remember?”

“Help me carry her,” says the hair-brusher.

“Will you remember?” the first voice repeats, but the hair-brusher doesn’t answer the question. Two sets of hands lift Sarah with an ease that’s faintly surprising. Before they reach wherever it is they’re taking her, Sarah sinks into unconsciousness proper with a gratefulness that’s savage and all-encompassing.

*

Sleep doesn’t want to let her go. Sarah claws her way into wakefulness with a sensation of tearing through a cocoon of thick, wet paper. Her head hurts less than she would’ve expected, but her mouth is filled with a cloying rankness and her cheek is tender. She’s in an unfamiliar bed, which isn’t strange for her after a night out, but the room itself is odd. She squints at it and realises what's off – it’s completely impersonal – she’s seen neat before, but this is just… empty. The bed is the only thing in the room, that and her jacket and boots lying on the floor, her clothing stark black against the off-white of the bed and walls.

Sarah gets up, shoves her feet into her shoes and in two quick steps reaches the bedroom door. She wrenches it open and stands in the hallway. The house feels too still and that oppressive blanket of _wrongness_ that filled her dreams the night before settles on her again. The hallway isn’t long, but it seems to have more doors than it should. Sarah ignores them and hurries down the stairs. There are no pictures on the walls, no knick knacks on strategically placed tables, no personal effects of any kind. It’s _weird_.

“Hello?” she calls, her throat scratchy with sleep. She rubs the back of her neck awkwardly, waiting for a reply, but none comes. A little bit of the tension leaves her body. She doesn’t want to have to deal with whoever owns this shell of a house. She just wants to get out.

It doesn’t seem like a large house but appearances must be deceptive because Sarah opens six doors and can’t find the front door. She wonders if she’s still dreaming and presses her hand to the swelling on her cheek to test. It hurts. She swallows panic and keeps looking. Three kitchens, five bathrooms, a huge dining room, four parlours, and ten bedrooms. One of the doors is locked and she feels a soar of hope, but when she looks through the keyhole it’s another toilet, thick with cobwebs and dead flies.

With a calm that feels as though it could break at any moment, Sarah retraces her steps back up the stairs and two doors to the right. She flings the door open – it’s _gone_. The room where she slept is gone. _It's fine it's fine it's fine you're fine_ , her brain gabbles. _You’ve just got the wrong door_. But she knows she hasn’t. She checks anyway, but the rooms in the hallway confirm her suspicions.

“What the bloody hell?” she screams, and kicks the wall, smearing mud down it. She squeezes her eyes shut so tightly black spots bloom in front of her lids. When she opens them the mud is gone. Everything swims for a moment and her ears ring. She wants to punch something. She wants to scream until her lungs explode, she wants to sink down and put her hands over her face and pretend this isn’t happening, _she wants she wants she wants._

“Sarah,” says a voice at the end of the hall. Sarah’s head jerks up so fast she nearly overbalances. There’s someone standing there, a woman with curious eyes and a furious tangle of blonde hair.

“How do I get out?” Sarah says, like an idiot.

The woman extends a thin hand. “Come, Sarah. I will help you.”

“She doesn’t want your help, Helena,” says another voice.

Sarah turns and sees another woman who almost seems like she was designed to be Helena’s opposite, but there’s a terrifying sameness to their faces, she notes, as though they’d been carved from the same block of stone. This other woman doesn’t hold out her hand, but Sarah can taste how badly she wants her to go to her.

“My name is Rachel,” she says. Her lipstick is blood-red. It’s the only nonwhite thing Sarah’s seen in the house.

“I can’t get out,” Sarah says, and immediately kicks herself because it sounds so stupid.

“Yes,” Rachel says, and her red, red lips curve in a smile, the kind of smile a snake might give to a particularly appetising mouse. “That is by design, Sarah. I would’ve thought you might’ve figured that out by now.”

“She must be hungry,” Helena says, but what she means is _I’m hungry_. “No good thinking on empty stomach. I will feed you.”

“No thanks,” Sarah shoots back. She is starving, but she doesn’t trust anything about this situation.

“Just as well,” Rachel says amusedly. “Helena has a rather… particular palate.”

Anger coils in Sarah’s chest. “Don’t fucking talk across me like I’m a little kid,” she spits. “What the hell do you want with me?”

Neither of them speak, just watch her like she’s a bird hopping closer and closer to a waiting cat. Sarah clenches her fists so hard her nails bite into her palms and forces herself to be as still as they are. The silence balloons around them until it presses against the ceiling.

“Come downstairs when you’re ready,” Rachel says finally, and vanishes down a staircase Sarah could’ve sworn wasn’t there before. After a few moments, Helena slinks away too, and Sarah has an odd sensation of being released, as though the two of them had been pulling at her on an invisible string that has now been snapped.

Being left alone makes her feel worse. They wouldn’t have done that if they thought she could get out. The only thing to do, then, is to go and find out what they want. Then she can make a plan to get out of here. _How are you supposed to escape a house that changes when you blink, Sarah?_ says a mean little voice in her head. Sarah tamps it down, makes it small until she can deal with it.

“It’ll be fine,” she tells herself. “You’ll be out of here before anyone even knows you’re gone.”

 _Because if you don't, no one will care enough to look_. She squares her shoulders and goes downstairs.

*

It started like this: she was a fucking idiot. She went to a bar and tried to get smashed enough to forget the fact that she couldn't do right by her kid. And here’s the middle; trapped in a magic house, sitting round a dining table with two people who may not be entirely human. It’s pretty bad, Sarah thinks, but it’s not going to be the end.

She’s never really believed in karma, but if this is some kind of cosmic wake up call, she’ll bloody take it and run with it. If she gets out of here (when she gets out), she’s gonna be a better mum. No more standing outside in the dark like a coward. She thinks of Kira hugging her and wraps the thought around her shoulders to make her brave. Helena slurps the last of her food up with a gurgle that sounds like a bath emptying and Sarah’s stomach rolls. There’s a single strawberry on her plate, violent red and mouth-wateringly fresh. They’ve given her a knife and fork to eat it with. Sarah grips the fork and thinks of jamming it into Rachel’s eye.

They’re both staring at her from across the table, mirror opposites but their faces glitter with the same hunger. Sarah doesn’t know why, but they want her so badly that they shine with it. She thinks of the way they stood upstairs, daring the other to step closer, and a feeling like warm oil slides into her stomach. They’re competing. That’s something she can use. They might be a little different from her usual marks, but they want something from her just like everybody else. She’s going to find out what that something is, and the minute she does, she’s getting the fuck out of here and going home.

Nobody can stop her.


End file.
